Why Faker.js Author Deleted His Library and Broke Thousands of Projects

In January 2022, thousands of JavaScript builds around the world suddenly failed.
The cause wasn’t a new zero-day vulnerability or a breaking API change.
It was one frustrated developer — Marak Squires, creator of Faker.js, a library downloaded over 20 million times a month.

In a fit of exhaustion and protest, he deleted his own code from npm.
In its place, he left a single, haunting message:

const faker = require('faker');
faker.youShouldSupportOpenSource();

Builds broke. CI pipelines collapsed. Companies scrambled.
And the entire open source world had to ask itself a hard question —
What do we owe the people who build our free software?

The Breaking Point of the Open Source Social Contract

For years, Marak had maintained Faker.js and Colors.js, two libraries used by startups, Fortune 500 companies, and government systems.
He wasn’t paid. He didn’t have sponsors. He didn’t even have time.
He just wrote code — and the world took it for granted.